University of Algarve | 14th February 2020 | 13h00

Title: “Extracellular vesicles: from cell-cell communication to biomarkers discovery”

Abstract: Bruno Costa-Silva will briefly introduce characteristics and biological functions of extracellular vesicles, with special focus in cancer biology and their potential applications for non-invasive liquid biopsy of oncologic patients. Bruno Costa-Silva will also present recent advances of his group in the identification and targeting of pro-metastatic microenvironments and new technologies for the study of populations of extracellular vesicles.

About the speaker: During his PhD, Bruno Costa-Silva contributed to projects that found that the interaction between Prion Protein and its ligand HSP70/HSP90 Organizing Protein induces colorectal cancer cells migration and invasion, nervous system stem cell self-renewal and development, glioblastoma growth and exosome production. Bruno played a key role in the first publication to show how tumor exosomes induce the formation of pre-metastatic niches. During his post-doc, Bruno first-authored the first work to identify the detailed mechanism of hepatic pre-metastatic niches formation by pancreatic cancer exosomes. Bruno also participated on the first description of genomic double-stranded DNA packaging in tumor-derived exosomes and co-first authored a work that introduced the molecular basis of how tumor-derived exosomes form pre-metastatic niches in specific organs. As a group leader at Champalimaud Foundation Bruno maintain productive collaborations with the Clinical Center and other European Research and Clinical institutions. His research group focuses in the identification of new biological functions of EVs in oncologic settings and in the identification of circulating exosomes populations linked to incidence and prognosis of oncologic and non-oncologic diseases.